Bittersweet

Chapter One

Detective Wyler figured Maine was just about picture-postcard perfect.

The rustic state boasted oodles of scenic wonders. Wicked-cute fishing villages. A rocky coastline where bald eagles nested. Acres upon acres of virgin forest. Quaint antique colonials lining country lanes like white poker chips in a row.

Moose. Too many goddamned moose to count.

Maine's unspoiled beauty choked him up, nearly brought a tear to his jaded eye.

He was that fucking homesick for the gritty back streets of Boston.

Then again, tourist stuff, like hitting the beach or taking advantage of photo ops, meant dick to him. Cameron -- Cam to his friends -- wasn't up here on vacation. And even if he were doing the recreating thang, this place would be the last place he'd ever want to park his ass for two weeks.

He'd be getting down in Bermuda, where his lightly creamed coffee complexion would blend in a little better with the locals.

His mama, now she was a darkly beautiful woman from Africa's shores. His daddy was black. Irish, that is. Their five kids ran the spectrum, everything from white to well...him. Winter or summer, he didn't need tanning lights to keep the brown glowing. His tan was all-over natural.

So, no, he hadn't driven all the way up here to the boonies to catch any rays. He was here -- under protest -- strictly to recuperate from a work-related injury. Namely, a bullet he took in the hip and head trauma. In other words, he had a boo-boo on his leg and a major headache. No biggie, not as far as he was concerned. Wounded or no, he could still pull his weight in the department.

The brass down at headquarters thought different.

When his physical and psych eval slid across their bureaucratic desktops, it was like, "Cam, you need to go someplace nice and quiet for a while, someplace peaceful where you can rest up and avoid stress."

Balls. He ate stress. Had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Topped it off with equal parts boredom and danger, and gobbled it down with a slice of anger mismanagement for dessert. Ask his bleeding ulcer how well he thrived on stress.

But, the thing was -- he didn't want to become a liability to his fellow detectives, because, hey, every so often, say every hour or so, he did feel a little woozy. Moderately disoriented. A lot paranoid. And apart from all the emotional crap and the concussion-induced junk, he was still dragging his bum leg. He sure didn't want anyone to have to cover his ass while working a case.

So, cool. He'd suffer through some stress-free R&R. No place on earth less stressful than the Pine Tree State. And if by some extreme fluke of coincidence, the woman he needed to locate was also holing up in Maine, well, hell, the top dogs at headquarters didn't need to know nuthin' about that, now did they?

The screen door to Nelley's Bar and Grille slapped open, allowing the noxious fumes of the Saturday Night's Fry and Die Special to escape, and Cam craned his neck at the exiting patron.

Maybe this time, he'd make the right connection...

Nope. It was just another joyful gent weaving out the door, making his way home to the missus at the end of happy hour.

Cam let out a yawn. Surveillance had never been his forte. After an hour of slumping against his jeep's chrome, he was ready to call it quits, if not for the remainder of his career, at least for the rest of the night. A man could only inhale so much saturated fat and tobacco smoke ambience, especially if that man had one doozy of a migraine.

Five minutes more, Cam decided, kneading his throbbing temples. Then he'd pack it in, head back to the cabin.

Rounding the brim of his black ball cap over his eyes, he folded his arms across the broad expanse of his dark nondescript shirt, tucked his unshaven chin under, and let the moonless night swallow him whole. Just a dude waiting on a friend...

Half an hour later, he was still chilling. Only now, his hip throbbed like a sonofabitch and his concussion-induced double vision made the single bulb over Nelley's blaze as bright as Vegas diamond wattage. Whoa, yeah, he was done in, done up, done for the night.

Cam patted his breast pocket. Where the fuck had he put his damn car keys?

The slamming screen caught his attention again. A lone woman came tripping into the parking lot. On her tail and moving in fast looked to be a Mack truck wedged in a too-tight muscleman T-shirt.

Aw, man! I don't need this shit. Not tonight!

He knew just where this courtship was going. The scenario was as old as the word no. Having had his advances scorned inside the bar, Lover-Boy had moved his wooing outside.

This pissed Cam off but good. However, in the grand scheme of things, teaching manners to a two-ton Romeo took a low, as in zero, priority.

But - there was always a but in his line of work and it was usually his sorry butt and it was usually on the line - Cam had to do something. The stalked woman had not a clue what was going down. Floppy hair feathers had obscured her line of vision.

Uh - hair feathers?

Gloria, the woman he had come to Maine to locate, also wore feathers in her hair.

Most hookers had gimmicks, from polka dot hot pants to red Betty Boop lips. Hair feathers were Gloria's professional trademark, her claim to fame, so to speak. That, and the unsubstantiated rumor that she had earned a BA from some prestigious girl's college.

That bio concluded Cam's information on Gloria. The hooker was so new to the business, she had yet to acquire either a rap sheet or a mug shot. Either street or book, the streetwalker definitely had some kind of smarts, though. Upon noticing strange happenings in her Mission Hill apartment building, she had promptly phoned in the tip to the Boston Police Department. Her dime-drop had brought down a serial murderer.

At a terrible price. Cam's partner, the best friend a man could ever have, had been killed during the arrest, ambushed from behind. In light of Harry's ultimate sacrifice, Cam's own snagged bullet and concussion seemed hardly worth mentioning.

Dammit! Harry would've wanted the hustler rewarded for her civic responsibility. As a testament to the bravery of his fallen partner, Cam meant to see that Gloria got her money.

First, he had to find her.

According to the word on the streets, needing to escape the heat in Beantown after her pimp showed up dead in the city morgue, the result of an unrelated gangland-style execution, Gloria had packed her bags and hopped the dog bus out of town, destination somewhere in Maine.

Following up on this lead, Cam trailed the Greyhound north into L.L. Bean country, where, thanks to the swift application of a fifty-dollar bill, the bus driver recalled seeing a be-feathered passenger disembark in downtown Portland. Deducing that Gloria would need to turn a trick or two to finance her stay, Cam started cruising the local rum dumps for working girls.

This took all of one night.

Turned out, Nelley's was Portland's only quasi-disreputable bar, which explained why Cam was squinting in pain outside the establishment when he should've been back at the cabin putting his cranky self to bed for the night.

Cam scratched his bristled jaw. The thing was, apart from the kooky feathers, the woman who'd exited Nelly's wasn't dressed like any hooker he knew of. Since when did prostitutes wear prim white blouses and knee-length tan skirts?

Christ, she looked like a damn schoolmarm.

And maybe that was the whole point. Gloria was on the lam. Maybe dowdy was her disguise.

Made a bizarre sort of sense, he supposed. Only...wouldn't the hair decoration attract attention and give her identity away? After all, the plumage stuck out like...well...feathers.

Hardly able to see straight, never mind think straight, Cam couldn't reason the answer out. With his skull about to lift off into orbit, he knew it was either check her out, or check out.

Gritting his teeth, Cam threw it into high gear.

Not a smart move. A fiery spike lanced down his leg and nearly dropped him to his knees. Why-oh-why hadn't he attended dental school like his well-meaning, but orally-fixated, parents suggested? Hell, no. Not him. In college, he majored in criminal justice, got a masters in it, too. Then, looking for glamour, he went to work for Boston's finest.

What the fuck had he been thinking?

An eighteen-wheeler in hormone overdrive was about to roll him over - not a whole helluva lot of glamour there.

Cam had but a single recourse to take. Utilizing his multi-faceted - and some might even say ambidextrous – negotiating skills, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Cash in hand, he tapped on a tattooed shoulder inscribed with the heartfelt motif: ED LOVES MOM.

"You know, Edward," he began, "your mommy wouldn't like your trolling around dark parking lots after unsuspecting ladies. And your unseemly behavior annoys the heck outta me, too."

To avoid imminent flattening, Cam forked over the wad of bills. "Get lost, pal. I saw her first."

Lover-Boy grabbed the money and trotted his ass elsewhere.

Another interpersonal conflict peacefully resolved, Cam snailed over to the far end of the parking lot, where the prostitute stood shaking, her feathers all ruffled. "How ya doin', sugar?"

"Fine," she tearfully gurgled. "Absolutely fine. Thank you for interceding on my behalf."

Her polite answer didn't mean shit. Gloria was losing it.

Since his shoulders were available and plenty wide enough, Cam didn't hesitate. "C'mere," he said, opening up for a hug.

She sank against him. "Sorry. I'm behaving like a baby."

"A lot of that baby stuff going around." He did some commiserative patting. "Must be the change of seasons or something. I'd offer you a tissue, but I'm fresh out. Went through a whole box last week."

"You're teasing."

Yeah, he wished. His most recent crying jag had messed up his sinuses for days.

"Hey, I'm getting in touch with my sensitive side here," he said, trying to cheer her up, maybe make her laugh. "Don't make me whimper in public to get validation."

For fucksake, what a clunker of a line. He had no knack for this sort of thing. Harry had always provided the tea and sympathy to the tearful, not Cam.

Manfully sniffing back his own case of the weepies, he snuck a peek under the love goddess's plumage to see how she was doing.

Pale was how she was doing. Probably in shock.

Cam cuddled her closer, sharing his body warmth. He didn't approve of selling sex, and hey, prostitution wasn't exactly legal, but life was hard, especially on women, and he had seen too many hard luck stories in his time for knee-jerk reactions. Busting hookers sometimes did more harm than good. Streetwalkers had kids, too. Kids like any other kids, who waited on their mamas to get home from work to slosh milk into their cereal bowls. So once or twice...or maybe like a thousand or so times...he had turned a blind eye to red-light-zone ladies.

"Don't be afraid," he thought to say to the one currently in his arms. "No one's gonna hurt you."

It was a promise he had no right to make. He didn't know Gloria for squat. And she didn't know him. Their mutual anonymity worked out well, as hookers tended to go all skittishness around cops. They were just two suffering bastards who happened to collide on a dark and gloomy night. He couldn't keep her safe, not in her line of work, but the reward money - withdrawn from his own personal bank account to give her - might improve her chances of staying alive.

She batted at her colorful feathers and then fixed her plain brown pocketbook over her shoulder, a bag bearing the initials "G.P".

For Gloria the Prostitute, Cam thought evilly.

"Allow me, honey." He brushed her hair decoration back where it belonged. "There. That's better. Now I can see you."

"Bad idea, the feathers," she said softly. "I copied them from a magazine pictorial."

"Those glossy fashion mags are damned dangerous. They should come with one of those warnings. You know, don't try these tricks at home." He chuckled at his play on words.

She didn't.

"Actually," she said, as serious as can be, "the article was in the National Geographic."

He gave her the look.

"No, really. The female members of a highly prolific subgroup of birds on the Galapagos Islands use colorful feather displays to attract the male of the species. I'm researching an applicable correlation to human dating behavior."

Say what?

Gloria sure talked fancy. And why did he get the feeling she'd just given him a lecture?

Damn. That rumor about Gloria's college degree must be true. This was no typical lamppost-loitering lady.

Okay. So, Gloria was a little flaky around the edges. Cam still gave her the nod. "I see where you're going with this. Nelley's. The Galapagos. They've got a lot in common. They're both wild kingdoms, am I right?"

"Exactly! My very point." She smiled.

Her smile was infectious, and he grinned right back at her, despite the ache in his leg.

So, Gloria wore cheesy hair feathers?

Big fucking deal. Feathers didn't make her totally nuts. They were only feathers.

She tilted her head in a cute, concentrating way. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Geez, what gave me away, the style or the skin?"

She turned beet-red. "Maine is racially diverse!"

He turned on the full homey treatment "Girl, what you talkin' 'bout di-verse? See any bruthas in this parking lot, 'sides me?"

"That's not fair."

She looked so damned embarrassed - and cute, damned cute - he took pity on her. "Maine is diverse, eh? Great, 'cause I've got more ethnicity represented in me than the U.N."

That was more than he should've told her. Gloria wasn't the only one with something to hide. He had made some enemies over the years in the cop biz. With a hip blown out from under him, he was a sitting duck for any crook with a score to settle. Keeping his disability under wraps only made sense.

Better drop the money to her on the sneak, then split, before things wax sentimental and I get melted.

"How 'bout going over to the motel with me?" he asked, putting his plan in motion.

She pointed at the well-worn path through the trees. "The Evergreen?"

"I'll get us a room," he said quietly. "You're a little shock-shaky. And I could use a rest."

"Your leg?"

"An old football injury," he ad-libbed.

When she looked him up and down, Cam pulled on his best pathetic slouch. "Hey, I'm harmless."

"I don't think so - "

He groaned. Tottered on his feet. She could've knocked him over with one of her damn feathers.

No sympathy ploy. The real deal. His pain pills were back at the cabin, and he needed them bad.

She made up her mind. "Swing your arm over my shoulder."

Too weak to protest, Cam did as told.